Plato 1578 Planck 1900 Rousseau 1755 Spinoza 1670 & 1677 Thoreau 1854 Voltaire 1759 Wittgenstein 1921, 1922 & 1953 Wollstonecraft 1792
ATHENA RARE BOOKS
CATALOG 17
Thirty High Points in the HISTORY of IDEAS The books are in this catalog are listed in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER (use the key below to locate individual authors)
[Anon] 1776 Bayle 1697 Beauvoir 1949 Berkeley 1710 Emerson 1841 / 1844 Darwin 1860 Gilbert 1600 Hegel 1821 Hobbes 1651 Hume 1748 James 1907 Kant 1787 Locke 1690 Mill 1859 & 1869 Montesquieu 1748 Newton 1714 Nietzsche 1886 & 1887 Plato 1578 Planck 1900 Rousseau 1755 Spinoza 1670 & 1677 Thoreau 1854 Voltaire 1759 Wittgenstein 1921, 1922 & 1953 Wollstonecraft 1792
1578 The STEPHANUS Edition of Plato in a Lovely 3-Volume Binding The Book That Established the UNIVERSAL REFERENCE System for Plato’s Writings
PLATO. Platonis opera quae extant omnia. (The Complete Works of Plato) [Title in Greek], Henr. Stephani, [Geneva], 1578.
Volume 1: TP + [i]-[vi] = Dedication to Queen Elizabeth + [vii]-[xxii] = Studioso Lectori + [xxiii]-[xxix] = Platone Epigrammata + [xxx]-[xxi] = Catalogus Dialogorum + half title (with first page of text – unnumbered – on the verso) + 1-469 + 471 + 471-542.
Volume 2: Half-title + [i]-[v] = Dedication to King James the Sixth of Scotland (later James the First of England) + [vi] = Two Poems + blank leaf [lettered AA.i.] + 3-701 + 672-673 + 704-953 + 949-950 + 956-992.
Volume 3: Half-title + [i]-[v] = Dedication to the Republic of Bern + [vi] = Poem + [vii] = Contents Page + 3-48 + 47 + 50-374 + 375 + 368 + 377-416 + 1-139; Folio (14" x 9.25").
First Complete Greek/Latin Edition. $ 12,000
"A great Renaissance author and scholar as well as a member of one of Europe's most illustrious families of printers, Henri Estienne II himself edited his grand Plato, for which he commissioned a new Latin translation by Jean de Serres. Together with his monumental 1572 Thesaurus graecae linguae, the lavish Plato was responsible, according to Schreiber, for securing both Estienne's scholarly reputation and his financial ruin." (Garden Ltd., #40)
This, the most famous single edition of Plato’s complete works ever published, came out of Geneva in 1578 from the print shop of Henri Estienne (1528-1598) – who is better known by his Latin name, Stephanus. At the time, Henri was one of the most famous scholars in Europe and in this book, based on his own research, he established the definitive version of Plato in Greek.
The Stephanus Plato was not the first printed edition of Plato's extant dialogues. It was preceded by the Aldine edition that Aldus Manutius published in Venice in 1513 in two volumes, and another edition printed in Basel in 1534 by Joannes Valderum.
This Stephanus edition, however, is deserving of special attention because it has served ever since its publication as the universal reference system for all other editions of Plato and still provides today the basis of the universally accepted way of quoting from Plato. In most translations of Plato there are small numbers in the margin which refer to the pagination in this edition. This affords scholars the opportunity to footnote in such a way that they can cross-reference each other's work in any language by relying on these "Stephanus numbers” – which refer to the page number in the Stephanus edition, followed by the letter (a, b, c, d, e) identifying the section in the page and the line number within that section.
All three volumes bound in 20th century full vellum. The spines with six raised bands and a title piece with gilt lettering on a red field for author and title in the second compartment and gilt lettering on a black field in the third compartment indicating the volume number. Large, dated, woodcut device of St. Paul and the olive tree on TP of the first volume, numerous woodcut head- and tailpieces and ornamental initials, text in two columns, in Greek and Latin. The title pages of Volumes 1 and 2 each have a ½” deep circular ink scribble running across the very top of the page obliterating some earlier inscription. The first volume also has a five line contemporary inscription in the free space to the bottom right of the St. Paul device. Overall, a lovely set which is more commonly seen bound as two volumes (i.e. volumes 1 & 3 bound together and volume 2 separate).
1600 The Birth of the Science of Electricity and Early Experimental Physics
GILBERT, William, DE MAGNETE, magneticisque corporibus, et de mango magnete tellure; Physiologia nova, plurimus & aegumentis, & experimentis demonstrata.(ON THE MAGNET, and magnetic bodies and on the slave magnet terrella; presenting new knowledge of nature with many new and experimental demonstrations), Petrus Short, Londoni, 1600. TP + [i]-[iii] = Præfatio + [iv]-[viii] = Preface + [ix] = Verborum + [x]-[xiv] = Index + [1]-240, Folio, 282 x 188 mm; 11⅛” x 7½”. First Edition.
$ 60,000 With numerous woodcut illustrations and diagrams in text (four full- page), and a large folding woodcut diagram (lightly browned) at page 200. All known copies have numerous ink emendations (not noted in the errata) which some have suggested shows that Gilbert saw the edition through the press personally. The present copy has manuscript corrections on pp. 11, 14, 22 and 47 – but not on p. 63 as seen in some copies.
First edition of the first great work of experimental physics published in England; a scientific study of electricity and magnetism. By his commitment to subjecting all theories to experiment, Gilbert became “among the first to initiate the experimental method of science” (Dibner). This work is one of the finest examples of inductive philosophy and even more remarkable for its publication two decades prior to Bacon’s Novum Organum, where that method was actually explained for the first time.
“Throughout the De Magnete Gilbert discussed and usually dismissed previous theories concerning magnetic phenomena and offered observational data and experiments which would support his own theories. Most of the experiments are so well described that the reader can duplicate them if he wishes, and the examples of natural occurrences which support his theories are well identified. When new instruments are introduced (for example the versorium, to be used in identifying electrics), directions for their construction and use are included” [DSB].
Studied by Kepler, Bacon, Boyle, Newton and, especially, Galileo (who used his theories to support his own defense of Copernicus), Gilbert’s work is “the first major English scientific treatise based on experimental methods of research” [Printing and the Mind of Man 107]. Published only after eighteen years of personal study and experimentation, this book has Gilbert’s new discoveries marked in the margins with large and small asterisks to denote whether they were significant or minor. Among the 21 major and the 178 minor discoveries is the conclusion that the earth is one large magnet (an assertion that led Galileo to study magnetism), as well as the invention of the versorium, his electroscope or electrometer, the first instrument devised to measure electrical phenomena. In addition, Gilbert showed that a freely suspended magnet is controlled by the earth, and not, as supposed, by extra-terrestrial influence. His magnetic theory enabled him to explain the behavior of the compass-needle, the dip-needle, the magnetic condition of vertical masses of iron, and the magnetic properties of heated iron bars when allowed to cool while lying in the magnetic meridian. In Book 2, which was intended as a digression into the importance of amber (“electrum”) to magnetic studies, Gilbert coined the terms “electricity”, “electric force” and “electric attraction” – clearly establishing his reputation as the founder of electrical science.
Gilbert also claimed another, less coveted kind of scientific repute by coming to see magnetism as the explanation for almost all phenomena. This led Francis Bacon to attack him in his Sylva Sylvarum (1626) as being “one of those people so taken up with their pet subject of research that they could only see the whole universe transposed into the terms of it” (Butterfield, p. 56). This singular, scientific phenomena persists into our own days with numerous scientists currently describing major elements of the universe as working “exactly like the computer”.
Printing and the Mind of Man 107
Contemporary limp vellum with yapped (overlapping) edges. Spine lettered in manuscript but faded. Foot of spine expertly repaired. Title lightly browned with a few tiny repairs, final few leaves evenly browned with lower margins repaired, some spotting. Cloth folding case. Overall, a very pretty copy of this extremely important book.
1651 Hobbes’ Brilliant Foundational Work in Political Theory “And the life of man[is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”
HOBBES, Thomas. Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. Printed for Andrew Crooke, at the Green Dragon in St. Paul's Church-yard, London, 1651. Illustrated, engraved title-frontispiece + TP + [i]-[ii] = The Epistle Dedicatory + [iii]-[iv] = The Contents of the Chapters + 1-396, folding table between pp 40-41; Small Folio. First Edition, First Printing (MacDonald & Hargreaves #42). $ 35,000
The first printing of the first edition with the winged “head” ornament on the second title page. There are three editions with title-pages bearing 1651 imprints. The second, with a “bear” ornament, was printed outside of England (probably Amsterdam), and the third, with a triangular-type “ornament”, is generally considered to date from around 1680. (See MacDonald & Hargreaves, pp. 27-30 for a full accounting of these differences.)
A FOUNDATIONAL WORK IN THE FIELD OF POLITICAL THEORY
Leviathan details Hobbes's notion of the origin of the State as a product of human reason meeting human need – through to its destruction as a consequence of human passions. According to Hobbes, the State, as an aggregate of individual men (so well portrayed in the famous engraved title), should always be tendered the obedience of the individual (except to save his own life), as any government is in Hobbes’s view, better than the natural anarchic state. Hobbes is a unique figure in the history of English political thought with his defence of absolutism – unpopular from the day it was published to the present with proponents of individual liberties – being based on expediency.
“Hobbes’s ideas have never appealed to proponents of the individual rights of man or to the modern totalitarians with their mystical vision of Volk, the fundamental nature of Hobbes's speculation has stimulated philosophers from Spinoza to the school of Bentham who reinstated him in his position as the most original political philosopher of his time" (PMM 138)
Hobbes’ most famous quote – about “the life of man” being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” can be found on page 62 at the bottom of the third paragraph which famously reads:
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time or war where every man is enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Printing & the Mind of Man 138
Old sprinkled calf boards with a lovely matching rebacked spine. Boards with double-lined gilt rules around the borders. Spine with five compartments and gilt title on a red field. in second compartment. Occasional light foxing. Unobtrusive ink accession markings to verso of both title pages. Partial, extremely faint institutional stamp to lower corner of engraved title page. Overall, a lovely copy of one of the most important books in Western political thought.
1670 First Edition, Third Issue of Spinoza’s Tractatus “One of the most eloquent arguments for a secular, democratic state in the history of political thought”
SPINOZA, Benedict, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Continens Dissertationes aliquot, Henricum Künraht [Jan Rieuwertsz], Hamburgi [Amsterdam], 1670. TP + [i]-[iv] = Præfatio + [v[-[vi] = Index Capitum + 1-233 + [234] = Errata Typographica + 1 blank leaf, small Quarto. First Edition, Third Issue (Kingma-Offenberg 5). $ 15,000 The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus has one of the most complicated and muddied publication histories of any major philosophical work. Even Kingma- Offenberg, the most recent bibliographers of Spinoza, point out that, in spite of all the research, the problem of the sequence of the editions and/or issues has not yet been definitely solved (pp. 6-8).
A recap of the points for the 5 issues noted by Kingma-Offenberg are as follows:
A. The editio princeps, #3, with the publisher’s last name spelled “Künraht” (as it is spelled in #4 and #5 – while #6 and #7 spell the name “Künrath”. B. The editio princeps, #3, has page 104 misnumbered 304. No other issue shows this error. C. All five issues are dated “1670” except #4 which is dated “1672” and is therefore sometimes designated as the “second edition”. D. #4 & #5 both have signature (*)3 misnumbered (*)4, page 42 misnumbered 24, page 207 misnumbered 213. Kingma-Offenberg note (p. 7) that according Bamberger T2 these issues should also have “Cap. XVI” miprinted as “Cap. XIV”. Since both issues match in every particular except the dates (1672 and 1670 respectively), issue #5 is sometimes designated as the “second edition with a variant date”. E. #4, #5, #6 & #7 have corrections made to the text that are not corrected in #3. (The Errata lists twelve corrections. Issues #4, #5 & #6 – while still listing all twelve – have actually corrected the errors on pages 8, 22, 39, 41 95 & 121. #7 has all of these corrected and has also corrected the errors on page 149.) F. #6 misnumbers page 130 as 830. G. #7 misnumbers page 192 as 92 and contains no “Errata Typographica” on p. [234].
As called for in Kingma-Offenberg #5, this copy with signature (*)3 misnumbered (*)4, page 42 misnumbered 24 and page 207 misnumber 213 (but hand corrected to 207). This copy does not exhibit the misprinting of “Cap. XIV” as noted in Bamberger T2. However, it does have “Cap. XIV” misprinted as “Cap. XVI” on p. 161 (an error either not previously noted or one which Kingma- Offenberg have misreported from Bamberger). Several corrections called for in the Errata have been made in a contemporary ink hand. Bamberger notes that this volume was most likely published in 1672.
“His fame spread and when he left Leiden for the Hague in 1663 he was already finding it difficult to prevent the surreptitious printing of his first great work, the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. It constituted an extension to political thought of his ethical views. Man is moved to the knowledge and love of God; the love of God involves the love of our fellow men. Man, in order to obtain security, surrenders part of his right of independent action to the State. But the State exists to give liberty, not to enslave; justice, wisdom and tolerance are essential to the sovereign power. Spinoza’s thought, a fusion of Cartesian rationalism and the Hebraic tradition in which he grew up, is a solitary but crystal-clear exposition of the theory of natural right. He defends with eloquence the liberty of thought and speech in speculative matters, and the Tractatus contains the first clear statement of the independence of each other of philosophy and religion, in that speculation and precepts of conduct cannot collide.” (PMM #153)
“The Theological-Political Treatise is one of the most eloquent arguments for a secular, democratic state in the history of political thought. Spinoza felt deeply about the issues he addressed, and – in contrast to the generally dispassionate Ethics – his sentiments in the Treatise are strong and unmistakable.” (Nadler, p. 285)
Contemporary vellum binding with small, occasional dark spotting to covers. The covers are ‘sprung’ – as is common with this sort of binding. The TP has a small, contemporary inked name to the right of the book title. Minor damp stain to lower front corner of last 19 leaves which is barely noticeable until the last four leaves. Overall, a nice, contemporary copy of this major work of Western philosophy and political theory.
1677 First Edition of Spinoza’s Masterwork – The Ethics
SPINOZA, Baruch. Opera Postuma, Quorum series post Præfationem exhibetur. [Jan Rieuwertsz], [Amsterdam], 1677. 1 blank leaf + TP + 18 leaves = Præfatio + half title + [1]-614 + 16 leaves = Index Rerum + half title + 1-112 + 4 leaves = Indiculus & Errata + 1 blank leaf. First Edition. $ 17,500
Published in the year of Spinoza's death, this posthumous collection was edited by his close friend, Jarig Jelles, whose preface, originally written in Dutch, was translated into Latin by L. Meyer.
Spinoza had contemplated publishing his Ethica two years earlier but the furor over his supposed atheism forced him to postpone the book’s release. The day before his death, Spinoza arranged for these works to be published by sending them to Jan Rieuwertsz who had previously published his Principia on Descartes and the Tractatus-theologico-politicus.
In the Ethica, Spinoza sought to apply the "geometric method" and mathematical reasoning to metaphysics resulting in what is considered to be the first systematic exposition of pantheism wherein God is identified with the entire universe. This is the work upon which Spinoza's reputation as a philosopher, a rationalist and an atheist chiefly rests. In addition, the book contains the Politica, De emendatione intellectus, Epistolae, & ad eas responsiones, and the Compendium grammaticus linguae Hebraeae (with separate half-title and pagination).
“The Ethics is an ambitious and multifaceted work. It is also bold to the point of audacity, as one would expect of a systematic and unforgiving critique of the traditional philosophical conceptions of God, the human being, and the universe, and above all, of the religions and the theological and moral beliefs grounded thereon. Despite a dearth of explicit references to past thinkers, the book exhibits enormous erudition. Spinoza’s knowledge of classical, medieval, Renaissance, and modern authors – pagan, Christian, and Jewish – is evident throughout. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Maimonides, Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes (among others) all belong to the intellectual background of the work. At the same time, it is one of the most radically original treatises in the history of philosophy.” (Nadler, Spinoza, A Life, p. 226)
The book was prepared in great secrecy and issued a few months after Spinoza's death, with the author identified only by the initials. The place of publication and the publisher were not specified. The year after its publication, it was proscribed by the states of Holland and West Friesland for being atheistic and blasphemous. The following year, 1679, it was placed on the Index by the Vatican.
This copy is without the portrait that, at one time, was thought to be a rare and distinguishing mark that appeared in only a few copies of the Opera Posthuma. Subsequent scholarship has proved, however, that the portrait post-dates the publication of the Opera and is therefore an interesting but not an original part of the book. It is, in all cases, a later addition to the binding - sometime after 1680 or 1681 - since, according to the son of the publisher, the portrait was not engraved until three or four years after Spinoza's death (Rieuwertsz to Dr. Hallmann, see Die Lebensgeschicthe Spinozas, Leipzig, 1899, p. 232). This is eminently logical since it makes very little to sense to publish a book anonymously (without listing a publisher or city of origin) and then printing a named portrait and placing it opposite this title page
Contemporary full vellum binding, which is only lightly soiled with hand-lettered title on the spine (B: D: SPINOSA / OPERA POSTHUMA.). The vellum has lifted slightly on the inside front cover, splitting the original pastedown across the top and down the side. The covers bow out just a bit which is common with bindings of this type. Bookplate on inside front cover (Tho. Parkinson) and on the verso of the blank preceding the TP is written in black ink: "Ex Libris Thoma Cranfurd Empt. Rotterodami / mense Augusti A. d. V. cbbcclxxvii." (the year of the books publication). Otherwise, a magnificent, clean and beautiful copy - actually; about as nice a copy as one might hope to find of this tremendously important book.
1690 A Lovely First Edition of Locke’s Essay – in Full Leather
LOCKE, John. An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. In Four Books., Eliz. Holt for Thomas Basset, London, 1690. 1 blank leaf + TP + [i]-[iv] = The Epistle Dedicatory + [v]-[ix] = The Epistle to the Reader + [x] = Errata + 1-362 + [363]-[384] = Contents + 1 blank leaf, small Folio arranged as a Quarto, 7⅜” x 12¼” (inner). First Edition, First Issue, (Yolton 61A).
$ 60,000 First edition, first issue – the title page listing Eliz. Holt, with the “SS” in “ESSAY” correctly printed and the thirty typographical ornaments. This copy has four of six possible misnumbered pages for this edition which Yolton notes appearing in “many copies of both issues, indiscriminately”: 85 as 83, 287 as 269, 296 as 294 and 303 as 230 (in some copies 76 is 50 and 77 is 55). In addition, page 55 has the called-for misprint “Underwandings” at the bottom of the page and the Roman numerals for the chapter numbers reading incorrectly at the top of pages 57 and 263. Finally, page 90 has deleted the paragraph indicator “§24.” [See Jean S. Yolton, John Locke, A Descriptive Bibliography, Thoemmes Press, 1998, pp. 70 for details on these variations.]
In his Introduction to the Clarendon Edition of the Essay [Oxford, 1975], Peter Nidditch “estimate[ed] that about 900 copies of the First Edition were printed, by far the greater number of them belonging to the Holt issue” (Nidditch, pp. xviii- xix) while Yolton, citing this estimate, claims: “We do not know the number of copies printed; Peter Nidditch has estimated about 900 copies were published, chiefly of the Holt issue. But it is possible there were as few as 500” [Yolton, pp 69-70].
Yolton, in her definitive bibliography clearly identifies the Holt imprint as the “first edition, first issue” (pp. 67-8) and notes, “it is generally assumed that the Holt issue is the earlier because the title-page of the other, Mory, issue is a cancellans. I would assume that after all pages of the text had been printed, Basset came to some financial arrangement with Edward Mory to help sell it. Johnson has stated: “It is probable that Mory acquired his rights in the book only shortly before the advertisement in the London Gazette of 29 May 1690 which give his name as publisher” (p. 69). It should be noted that the book was printed in late November of 1689 and copies had been distributed to Locke as early as December 3, 1689 (p. 69).
The seminal Essay addresses the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. Locke describes the mind at birth as a blank slate (tabula rasa, although he did not use those actual words) filled later through experience. The essay was the most important early source of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many Enlightenment philosophers such as George Berkeley and David Hume. More than any other, this book set British philosophy on its subsequent empirical course.
Book II of the Essay importantly sets out Locke's theory of ideas, including his distinction between passively acquired simple ideas, such as "red," "sweet," "round," etc., and actively built complex ideas, such as numbers, causes and effects, abstract ideas, ideas of substances, identity, and diversity. Locke also distinguishes between the truly existing primary qualities of bodies, like shape, motion and the arrangement of minute particles, and the secondary qualities that are "powers to produce various sensations in us" such as "red" and "sweet." These secondary qualities, Locke claims, are dependent on the primary qualities. He also offers a theory of personal identity, offering a largely psychological criterion. Book III is concerned with language, and Book IV with knowledge, including intuition, mathematics, moral philosophy, natural philosophy (what we would call ‘science’), faith and opinion.
Printing and the Mind of Man 164
Full leather paneled boards with an elegant period rebacked spine with five raised bands and gilt lettering on a dark red field. Title page separated at the bottom 1½” and lightly soiled. There is a contemporary former owner’s signature (“Josp Brownridge’s / Book”) in black ink surrounding the graphic device in the center of the title page. With some soiling and foxing to the first two leaves. Otherwise, a lovely copy of this important book. Comes in a custom pull-off case.
1697 A Gorgeous First Edition Copy of Bayle’s Famous “Dictionary” Bound in Four (rather than Two) Beautiful Vellum Bindings BAYLE, Pierre. Dictionaire Historique et Critique (Historical and Critical Encyclopedia), Reinier Leers, Rotterdam, 1697. Volume 1 (A-B): TP + [i]-[ii] = Priviegie + 1-12 = Preface + 1-586 + 557-560 + 591-712; Volume 2 (C-G): TP + 713-1359 + [1360] = Errata du I. Volume; Volume 3 (H-O): TP + 1-525 + 510 + 527-710; Volume 4 (P-Z): TP + 711-1331 + [1332] = Errata du II. Volume + [1333]-[1388] = Table des Matieres; Folio (10.5” x 15.75”), First Edition. $ 7,000
The true first edition with the Preface dated 23rd October 1696. Bound in four volumes rather than the more commonly seen two. One of just 2,000 copies printed. Beautiful wide margins:1¼” top and 2½” on the bottom and the right side.
Bayle, “the most important and influential skeptic of the late seventeenth century” (EP, Vol. I. p. 257) “wrote his ‘Historical and Critical Encyclopedia’ in his voluntary exile in Rotterdam as an anti-clerical counterblast to Moréri’s work [Le Grand Dictionnaire, 1674] in order, as he put it, ‘to rectify Moréri’s mistakes and fill the gaps’. Bayle championed reason against belief, philosophy against religion, tolerance against superstition. In a seemingly detached way he posed argument and counter-arguments side by side, reserving his most daring insinuations to the renvois (references), which supplemented the actual entries. For over half a century, until the publication of the [philosophes] Encyclopédie, Bayle’s Dictionaire dominated enlightened thinking in every part of Europe.” (PMM)
“The Dictionary was composed in Talmudic style. Relatively brief biographical articles appeared at the top of the page, while all sorts of digressive notes on factual, philosophical, religious, or other matters appeared below, with notes on notes appearing in the margins. The biography of some extremely little-known personage, like Rorarius, would provide forums for discussing the problem of evil; the immorality of great figures, especially Old Testament ones; the irrationality of Christianity; the problems of Locke’s, Newton’s, Malebranche’s, Aristotle’s, or anyone else’s philosophy; or for some salacious tale about a famous theologian, Catholic or Protestant, or a famous political figure of almost any age. There was little relation between the official subject of an article and its real content. But there were several major themes and threads that ran through many or most of the articles, themes that amounted to a massive onslaught against almost any religious, philosophical, moral, scientific, or historical view that anyone held. (Once Bayle explained that he was a Protestant in the true sense of that term, that he opposed everything that was said and everything that was done.)” (EP, Vol. 1, p. 258).
Printing and the Mind of Man 155
All volumes bound in vellum with lightly scuffed covers which are just a bit bowed (as is typical with vellum). There is a central embossed geometric design (4” x 7”) with embossed ruled lines on both front and back covers. The spines have raised bands and eight compartments each. The head and foot of each spine has a lightly embossed ruled design. The top compartment of each volume is marked with a large, hand-lettered “+”. The second compartment of each volume has gilt labels on a red leather field. The third compartment of each volume is hand-lettered with an alphabetical designation (A-B, C-G, H-O or P-Z). With the engraving of Athena instructing three children on each of the four title pages. Each volume has a small (5/8” x 3/4”), unobtrusive black seal on the title page -- just to the right of the central illustration -- 17th or 18th century, which looks to be the mark of a bishop’s library. Occasional foxing throughout. Beautiful wide margins:1¼” top and 2½” on the bottom and the right side. Overall, an excellent copy. Individually:
Volume 1: With older professional restoration work to both the front and back joints where the vellum has begun to lightly separate. Verso of front blank leaf lettered in contemporary ink at top: “E.135.XI.” (with “136” and “137” crossed out) and in the center “II. XVIII. 1.” (which has been struck out with a single line). Occasional marginal water stains. Page 712 has been stamped at the bottom in modern black ink “1013”.
Volume 2: With older professional restoration work to both the front and back joints where the vellum has begun to lightly separate. Verso of front blank leaf lettered in contemporary ink at top: “E.151.XII.” and in the center “II. XVIII. 2.” (which has been struck out with a single line). The final printed page has been stamped at the bottom in modern black ink “1014”.
Volume 3: With older professional restoration work to both the front and back joints where the vellum has just begun to lightly separate. Verso of front blank leaf lettered in contemporary ink at top: “E.151.XIII” and in the center “II. XVIII. 3.” (which has been scribbled out with black ink) and “II. XVIII. 3.” (which has been struck out with a single line). Page 710 has been stamped at the bottom in modern black ink “1015”.
Volume 4: With older professional restoration work to both the front and back joints where the vellum has just begun to lightly separate. Verso of front blank leaf lettered in contemporary ink at top: “E.151.XIV.” and in the center “II. XVIII. 4.” (which has been struck out with a single line). The final printed page has been stamped at the bottom in modern black ink “1016”.
1710 First Edition of Berkeley’s Most Famous and Most Challenging Work Proposing and Defending the Doctrine of Absolute Immaterialism – “esse est percipi”
BERKELEY, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I. (no second Part was ever published), Printed by Aaron Rhames for Jeremy Pepyat, Dublin, 1710. 1 blank leaf + TP + [i]-iii + [iv-v] = Preface + [vi] = Errata + 1-214 + 2 blank leaves, Octavo. First Edition (Keynes 5). $ 22,000 "Berkeley maintained that no existence is conceivable or possible which is not conscious spirit or the idea of which such a spirit is conscious. This presupposes complete equation of subject and object: no object can exist without a Mind to conceive it.... In the Principles, externality absolutely independent of all mind is shown to be an unreal, impossible conception... esse est percipi." (PMM, p. 105)
"Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge...sought to establish his doctrine of immaterialism as the basis of religious belief. It is therefore in some ways his most important book…" (Keynes, p. 14)
The first edition of the book that challenged the grand empirical doctrines that were the foundation of all other significant English and Scottish thought. This, Berkeley's most significant work, challenged Descartes, Newton and Locke claiming that every existing object is generated wholly by human consciousness, and therefore ultimately immaterial: objects “cannot exist otherwise than in a Mind perceiving them” (p. 43).
Although the title reads 'Part I', the book constitutes the complete version of the Treatise. While travelling in Europe, Berkeley lost the manuscript for Part II and never felt the need to re-write it (or rather, he admitted, the personal boredom of uncreative repetition would be worse than the loss). Only Part I was therefore published, further developments being left to the slightly more 'popularized' form of the Dialogues, published in 1713.
The content of the book was nonetheless enough to eventually provoke the reception that Berkeley had anticipated when he declared: “a mighty sect of men will oppose me”. Although Berkeley enjoyed a deep and assiduously cultivated friendship with the young members of the Rankenian Club in Edinburgh, he knew that neither the clarity of his philosophical insight nor the grace of his style would win him the benevolence of the orthodox empiricists. In the land where Newtonianism held sway, he would be dismissed as a vain pretender.
Lord Chesterfield, for example, devoted a few lines to ridiculing Berkeley's immaterialism in one of his celebrated letters to his son (1232 ed. B. Dobrée): “Removed as it was, he found, from the most common self-evidence of true life, this alleged non-existence of things and matter was not to prevent him from taking good care of his bodily self!”
Most famously, Boswell reports that after leaving a lecture by Berkeley, he and Samuel Johnson “stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that everything in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it – ‘I refute it thus.’"
Still, Berkeley's confidence in his own method remained strong, declaring “Newton begs his principles; I demonstrate mine”.
Printing and the Mind of Man 176
A beautiful mid-20th century full-leather binding with paneled calf boards and the spine with embossed compartments. The spine is titled with gilt lettering on a red field. All pages are somewhat browned (as usual). Page 39 is missing a corner section (triangular .5" x 1") with no loss to text. Otherwise, a truly lovely copy of a milestone work in Western Philosophy.
1714 Newton’s Monumental Principia Mathematica The Second Edition (First Amsterdam Issue, 1714)
NEWTON, Isaac. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Auctore Isaaco Newtono, Equite Aurato. Edition Ultima, Auctior et Emendatior. Sumptibus Societatis, Amstælodami, 1714. 1 blank leaf with an engraved portrait of Newton (and two of his signatures) pasted down + TP + [i] = Dedication page + [iii]-[iv] = Halley’s Poem to Newton + [v]-[viii] = Newton’s Preface [dated 1713] + [ix]-[xxiv] = Editor’s Preface + [xxv]-[xxvi] = Index + 1-484 + [485]-[491] = Index Rerum + 1 blank leaf. Quarto. Second Edition, Second Printing (Amsterdam Issue). $ 18,000
It is in this edition of the Principia that Newton’s famous additions to the theory of the motion of the moon and the planets appear for the first time, as well as many other important additions and corrections including the famous General Scholium in which Newton gives a general resume of the work.
The title page printed in red and black with an engraved device. Illustrated throughout with numerous woodcut diagrams and with a folded engraved plate illustrating the orbits of comets facing page 464.
Newton’s monumental Principia was originally presented to the world in 1687. The second – much enlarged – edition was published in Cambridge in 1713. This second printing of that revised text was released the following year in Amsterdam having been entirely reset from the Cambridge copy and the text corrected for known errors. (There was yet another Amsterdam printing of this second edition in 1723.) The third edition of the Principia – the last in Newton’s lifetime – was published in 1726.
In September of 1709 Newton placed the emended text of Principia into the hands of his editor Roger Cotes who suggested further revisions and wrote a lengthy preface defending the Newtonian system. His preface includes an interesting reference to the New World as Cotes asserts that the law of gravity functions in America precisely as it does in Europe. Newton himself lists the major emendations at the end of his author's preface. These changes pertain to the laws of orbiting bodies, the resistance of fluids, lunar declinations, and comets.
"Richard Bentley, Master of the Trinity College, was instrumental in bringing out this second edition, which was edited by Roger Cotes, F.R.S. In his important preface, Cotes attacks the Cartesian philosophy, then still in vogue in the universities, and refutes an assertion that Newton's theory of attraction is a causa occulta. It contains a second preface by Newton and considerable additions, the chapters on the lunar theory and the theory of comets being much enlarged" [Babson 12].
A lovely wide-margined copy in a contemporary full vellum binding. There is a contemporary gilt on burgundy title piece on the spine and the handwritten word “Newton” above this – all but faded from existence. With a small former owner’s bookplate (Nicolao de Nobili) to the inside front cover and another former owner’s inked signature and date (Ludwig Lange / 1884) to the top of the front free end paper. On the Dedication Page there is a two line ink inscription in the upper right corner by Prof. H. Keefer. The pasted-in portrait of Newton was engraved by Enoch Seeman and the ownership of the original signatures is ascribed to John Thane. With the text blocks of most pages uniformly tanned. Comes in a custom clamshell box done in ivory cloth. Overall, a lovely copy of this incredibly important book which is difficult to find and all but impossible to afford in the first edition.
1748 The Book that Woke Kant from His “Dogmatic Slumber” "One of Hume's most important philosophical works, and one of the greatest works in Western philosophy"
HUME, David. Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding [later published as An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding]. A. Millar, London, 1748. 1 blank leaf + TP + iii-iv = Contents + 1-256 + [257]-[260] = publisher’s advertisements, 12mo., First Edition. $ 8,500 The rare first edition of the book that is better known under the title used for its 1758 reprint (and ever since): An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. This is the book that the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy have called "one of Hume's most important philosophical works, and one of the greatest works in Western philosophy."
David Hume published his first book, A Treatise on Human Nature in 1738 and 1740, and it caused some controversy, but the controversy was about Hume alleged skepticism and the harmful effects that his theories would have upon religion rather than on the ideas themselves. The Treatise did not get the serious attention that its author expected and he later claimed that it ‘fell stillborn from the press.’
The Philosophical Essay was Hume’s reworking and repackaging of the ideas found in Book I of his Treatise. It was an explicit attempt to arouse proper understanding of the radical nature of his ideas. He did so by restating, streamlining and simplifying some of the more difficult propositions in that earlier work.
The book also directly addressed the charges of skepticism and atheism which had been leveled against him by those who did read the Treatise. Hume added new material to the book that directly dealt with the charge of skepticism, but it did little to allay the worries and fears of his contemporaries. They just could not see beyond the limitation of their own entrenched views. Even worse, Hume included here a new chapter “On Miracles” which only further enflamed the controversy surrounding his rejection of traditional religious belief and understanding.
The book is Hume’s definitive statement in support of reasoning from experience (and its limitations), and against the "sophistry and illusion" of religiously inspired philosophical fantasies. The Essay investigates the origin and processes of human thought and reaches the stark conclusion that we can have no ultimate understanding of the physical world, or even of our own minds. In either sphere we must depend on instinctive learning from experience, recognizing our animal nature and the limits of reason. Hume's calm and open-minded skepticism thus aims to provide a new basis for science, liberating us from the "superstition" of false metaphysics and religion.
It has been said that the deep and profound significance of Hume’s attack on the limitations of experience as a basis for metaphysics and philosophy was only truly understood by two people: namely Thomas Reid who responded with his creation of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy and Immanuel Kant whose groundbreaking and ground-shattering “Critique of Pure Reason” was published in 1781. This is, in fact, the book that Immanuel Kant claimed was responsible for waking him from his “dogmatic slumbers” – and thereby launching his career as one of the towering figures in Western Philosophy.
Hume’s reputation as a skeptic and an atheist was responsible for his being unable to obtain an academic position anywhere in Britain – something his friend Adam Smith has predicted when he warned Hume against publishing the more anti-religious additions to this book. Hume subsequently took a job as secretary to a noble house and, over the years, turned his attentions more towards history, a career for which he finally got the literary acclaim that he so desired. His six volume History of England was a popular success, but it was exactly this work and its success that resulted in Hume being drawn farther and farther from the realms of revolutionary philosophical thought.
Recent 18th-century-styled full calf binding over the original boards. The spine with five raised bands and gilt decorations in each compartment with a gilt lettered black title label in the second compartment. Former owner’s neat ink inscription to the front free endpaper (“Hamilton Hadley / E.H.M. / March 1929”). The title page is lightly foxed. Overall, a very pretty copy of this immensely important work in the history of Western Philosophy.
1748 A Beautiful Wide-Margined Copy of the First Edition of Montesquieu’s Seminal “Spirit of the Laws”
MONTESQUIEU, Baron de, De l’Esprit des Loix Ou du rapport que les Loix doivent avoir avec la Constitution de chaque Gouvernement, les Moeurs, le Climat, la Religion, le Commerce &c. (The Spirit of the Laws), Barrillot & Fils, Geneve, [1748]. Volume 1: Half title + TP + 2 leaves = first 4 unnumbered pages of the Preface + I-IV = balance of Preface + V-XXIV = Table des Livres & Chapitries + [1]-522; Volume 2: Half title + TP + [I]-XVI = Table des Livres & Chapitries + [1]-564; Quarto (20 x 26 cm; 7⅞” x 10⅜”) . First Edition, First Issue. (Tchemerzine VIII, p. 459; La Petit, p. 495) $ 35,000 With the publisher’s name as “Barrillot” instead of the “Barillot” of later issues; also, without the errata sheet at the end of Volume 1.
Montesquieu gained fame in 1721 with his Persian Letters, which criticized the lifestyle and liberties of the wealthy French as well as the church. However, On the Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, was his most famous work – the one in which he carefully outlined his ideas on how governments would best work.
Montesquieu argued that the best government would be one in which power was balanced among three groups of officials. He thought England - which divided power between the king (who enforced laws), Parliament (which made laws), and the judges of the English courts (who interpreted laws) - was a good model of this. Montesquieu called the idea of dividing government power into three branches the "separation of powers." He thought it most important to create separate branches of government with equal but different powers. That way, the government would avoid placing too much power with one individual or group of individuals. His ideas about separation of powers became the basis for the United States Constitution.
“Finally, in 1743 he began De l’Esprit des Loix. It took four years to write, and when it was finished almost all his friends advised him not to publish it. Montesquieu paid no attention and it was printed in Geneva in the autumn of 1748. It consists of six main sections, the first dealing with law in general and different forms of government, and the second with the means of government, military matters, taxation and so on. The third deals with national character and the effect on it of climate; a subject of peculiar originality and the one most discussed at the time. The fourth and fifth deal with economic matters and religion; the last is an appendix on law – Roman, feudal and modern French... The scheme that emerges of a liberal benevolent monarchy limited by safeguards on individual liberty was to prove immensely influential... his theories underlay the thinking which led up to the American and French revolutions, and the United Stated Constitution in particular is a lasting tribute to the principles he advocated.” (PMM, 197)
Printing and the Mind of Man 197
Contemporary English calf with the spines ruled in gilt and dark green morocco labels and gilt lettering. All edges yellow. Gauffered edges to all boards. Spines expertly repaired. Some surface wear to boards and slight wear to extremities. With the armoiral bookplate of Francis John Davies on the inside of each cover. Small (¾” x ⅞”), illegible, black-ink stamp unobtrusively positioned on each title. A clean and crisp copy throughout with wide margins. An extremely attractive copy of this important Enlightenment work.
1755 First Edition, First Printing of Rousseau’s First Book with ALL the Called-for Issue Points
ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Discours sur L’origine et les Fondemens de L’inegalité Parmi les Hommes (Discourse on the Origins and the Foundations of Inequality among Men), Marc Michel Rey, Amsterdam, 1755. 1 blank leave + engraved frontispiece “Il retourne chez fes Egaux” + TP + [III]-LXX + 1 leaf = “Avertissement” with “Question” on verso + [1]-262 + [263] = “Errata” + [264] = “Avis pour le Relieur” + 2 blank leaves, Octavo. First Edition, First Printing (Dufour #55, Volume 1, pp. 55-57).
$ 4,500 Rousseau’s most important work after Contract Social (1762) -- posing a radical challenge to Locke and Hobbes. Having won the prize from the Academy of Dijon with his essay, Discours sure les sciences et les arts, in 1749, Rousseau responded to another essay competition by the same Academy in 1753 which posed the question: “What is the origin of inequality among Men, and is it authorized by Natural Law?”. Rousseau responded promptly: “If the Academy has the courage to raise such a question, then I will have the courage to write about it.” The result was an essay which is remarkable both as philosophy and as science. In less than a hundred pages, Rousseau outlined a theory of the evolution of the human race; he propelled the study of anthropology and linguistics into new channels, and made a seminal contribution to political and social thought. Most important is his thesis that current human society is the result of a long series of declines from Man’s original state of nature. Rousseau imagined primitive man living in isolation in the forests, self-sufficient, equal to his fellows because he was independent of them. Gradually Man formed primitive societies based on the family which carried within them a sense of mutual obligation. Finally, with the advent of the concept of property, Man succumbed to inequality. Central to this vision, is the belief that all government is founded on a contract between the people and their rulers -- a doctrine he was to develop more fully in his Contract Social seven years later. Even if his arguments were seldom fully understood by his readers, the book altered the way people thought about themselves, about their world and about society in general having a profound effect upon future political discourse and actions.
With ALL fourteen of the issue points noted by Dufour (I, 55) to distinguish it from the pirate edition of similar appearance in the same year (NOTE: it is unusual for copies to have all of these issue points):
(1) the frontispiece engraved with a title reading “chez” not “chés”, (2) frontispiece properly signed at the bottom, (3) the TP printed in red and black, (4) the figure of Liberty on the TP is full-sized and (5) signed by Fokke, (6) the Geneva coat of arms on page [III] engraved not copied and (7) signed “S.F.”, (8) Rousseau’s name misspelled on p. LII (“Jaques”), (9) pp. LXVII-LXVIII is a cancel (10) the hand inked accent mark for “conformé” on page 11 (first word, third line from bottom), (11) pp. 111-112 is a cancel, (12) pp. 139-140 a cancel, (13) p. 262 beginning “cune difference” rather than “dans laquelle” and (14) including the “errata / avis” page [263]-[264].
In addition, other bibliographers have noted two further points in distinguishing the true first edition from the pirate, both of which are present here:
(1) p. LXV mis-numbered as XLV and (2) gathering “L5” incorrectly signed as “K5”.
Beautifully bound in recent full leather with period styling. The spine has five raised bands and is decorated with gilt decorations in each panel. The title is gilt on a red field. A clean and bright – albeit recently rebound – copy with ALL of the required issue points. A very pretty copy of this book.
1759 The First Paris Edition (1759) of Voltaire’s Revolutionary Candide
[VOLTAIRE, Francois Marie Arouet de], Candide, ou l’Optimisme, traduit de l’allemand de Mr. Le Docteur Ralph (Candide, or The Optimist, translated from the German of Dr. Ralph). [Lambert?, Paris], 1759. 2 blank leaves + TP + [3]-237 + [238]—[240] = Table des Chapitres +1 blank leaf. 12 mo. First Paris Edition (Wade 11, Barber 237b). $ 3,000 Is there a funnier and more accessible piece of 18th century literature than Voltaire’s hilarious Candide? The story begins with Candide, a young man who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise, being indoctrinated into Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this idyllic lifestyle and is followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, rejection of optimism and his adoption of the deeply practical precept that "we must cultivate our garden", this in place of Pangloss’s Leibnizian mantra that "all is for the best" in this "best of all possible worlds”.
Candide is characterized by its sarcastic tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast- moving plot. It is a picaresque novel that parodies many adventure and romance clichés of its day while still being rooted in reality by incorporating many historical happenings, such as the Seven Year’s War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Along the way, Voltaire caustically ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and, most especially “optimistic” philosophers.
As expected by Voltaire, Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is recognized as Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon and is among the most frequently taught works of French literature.
The first Paris edition of Voltaire’s immensely readable and still highly entertaining classic, Candide, which has a printing history so complicated that it has taken years to unravel. The book was such a sensation that it was instantly pirated 16 times in the first year of its release. The most comprehensive explanation of the 17 different printings bearing the year 1759 on the title page can be found in Giles Barber’s 25- page exposition in Volume 48 of Les Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire (see pp. 86-110) published by The Taylor Institution, Oxford in 1980.
Barber describes four issues of 299 pages (the first of which is this first printing offered here), six Paris issues with 237 pages, two of 167 pages, two of 215 pages and three of 176, 190 and 301 pages respectively. The priority of this first 299-page printing done by Cramer of Geneva is now beyond question (Barber’s 299G).
Having 237 pages, this is easily identified as one of the 1759 Paris issues, but which of the six can be a bit more complicated. This copy has the following issue points identifying it as Barber’s 237b:
• Page 21 reads “lendermain” [line 12] Page 45 is correctly paginated [rather than reading “25”] Page 84 reads “qui a une trés belle moustache” at line 13 [rather than line 15] Page 123 reads is misnumber as “223” Page 134 reads “connoissance” [line 2] and “Affrique” [line 9] Page 135 reads “avoüe” at line 9 There is no ornament on page 225 [as there is in Barber 237 and 237a]
A lovely first-year-of-issue pirate copy of this monumental work in literature, philosophy and the cultural upheaval that was the French Enlightenment.
Contemporary full leather binding with five raised bands on the spine with gilt title in the second compartment and gilt decorations in all of the others. The first blank leaf has five lines of contemporary ink writing as does the verso of the title page (with one bit of ink offset to the first page of the text). The final page of the text [240] and the following blank leaf along with the inside of the recto of the rear free endpaper exhibit identical writings. Otherwise, a clean, bright and tight copy of this remarkable book, one of the most entertaining classics in the Western Canon.
1776 A Lovely Early Printing of the Notorious Les Trois Imposteurs “The most ubiquitous and influential of the clandestine philosophical manuscripts” which “surpasses infinitely in atheistical profanity” anything published during the Enlightenment
[ANON] Traité des trois Imposteurs (A Treatise on the Three Imposters), [no publisher], Amsterdam, 1776. 1 blank leaf + TP + + 1-138 + [137]-[138]= Table des Matieres + 1 blank leaf. Large 12mo. (4” x 6¾”). Later edition. $ 1,500 The author of this book has been variously identified as Lucas, Faint-Glain, Boulainvilliers, Levier, Vroesen, Aymon and even to Baron d’Holbach. Because of its heretical and blasphemous content (Israel in Radical Enlightenment says on p. 695 that it “surpasses infinitely in atheistical profanity even those works of Spinoza which are regarded as the most pernicious”) there are no lack of suitable candidates among the more radical elements of the French Enlightenment.
This text was long an underground affair, never officially published, showing up in slightly different hand-written versions and frequently seen incorporated with other texts. Claims have been made that the its origins was in the 1200s, but its history is still confused by the fact that everyone involved with this work was so secretive – an understandable position to take given the harsh penalties (including death) that could result from being associated with this text in any way.
The publication history of this book has become something of a cottage industry for Enlightenment bibliographers. The first printed appearance the text seemed to have been just a part of a larger work, La Vie et l’Esprit de Spinosa, which had a “tiny” press run in 1719 by a Dutch printer (see Israel, pp. 684 & 700).
The text of Traite des trois Imposteurs was then excerpted and avidly copied by hand and circulated among the most radical free thinkers of Europe – who frequently paid exorbitant prices just for the privilege of owning a copy.
Beginning in 1768, printers became brave enough (or government supervision lax enough) that they actually began to print and surreptitiously sell various editions of the text. Offered here is a 1776 edition of this revolutionary and heretical work. (There are a very small handful of 1768 printings known along with slightly more plentiful copies issued with a title page date of 1775.)
This short treatise presents a direct assault on the three great monotheistic religions by challenging the integrity of their founding figures, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed who are, throughout, the targets of scurrilous attacks. The Treatise claims that these religions at bottom lack any substance whatsoever and owe their success in the world to the fear that underlies all of their basic assumptions and pronouncements. In contradistinction to these three frauds, the text extols the supremacy of reason and claims that Nature as the only god that is acting within the world. The Treatise also offers an all-out attack on the idea of revelation (which is exposed as a fiction of the imagination), along with a discussion of the ways in which claims to revelation made by crafty politicians have resulted in the enslaved humankind. Having thoroughly castigated and destroyed these “three impostors” and all of their works, the Treatise goes on to present a more philosophical discussion of God, the soul, and demons.
For more details and a scholarly discussion of this important work, see Jonathan Israel’s masterful book, Radical Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001) – most especially pages 684-703.
NOTE: This edition contains the six notorious chapters along with three Appendices: "Sentimens sur le Traité des trois imposteurs", by B. de La Monnoye, pp. 93-119; "Réponse à la dessertation de Mr. de La Monnoye, sur le Traine des trois Impsoteurs", signed J.L.R.L., and attributed to P.F. Arpe, and to J. Rousset de Missy, pp. 119-134 [dated Janvier 1716]; "Copie de l'article IX du tome ler, seconde partie, des Mémoires de littérature imprimes a la Haye ches Henry du Sauzet, 1716”, pp. 135-138.
18th century ¾ leather binding with brown and black marbled boards and gilt linings on the edges of the leather. The leather on the front is ever so slightly discolored (see photo). The spine with five raised bands and gilt decorations in each compartment with a gilt titling on a black field in the second compartment. With some light staining to the title page which is more pronounced on pp. 133-[140]. A lovely, uncut copy of this extraordinarily important text of the Radical Enlightenment.
1787 Kant's Heavily Revised Second Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason The “B” Text which All Modern Editions Include as an Integral Part of the Critique Laying “the foundations both for the certainty of modern science and for the possibility of human freedom”
KANT, Immanuel. Critik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason). Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, Riga, 1787. 1 blank leaf + TP + [III]-[VI] = Dedication + [VII]-XLIV = Vorrede + [1]-884, Octavo. Second Edition. [Warda 60] $ 4,000 This, Kant’s masterpiece, which made him world-famous is arguably the most important book of philosophy published in modern times.
“Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is one of the seminal and monumental works in the history of Western philosophy. Published in May 1781, when its author was already fifty-seven years old, and substantially revised for its second edition six years later, the book was both the culmination of three decades of its author's often very private work and the starting-point for nearly two more decades of his rapidly evolving but now very public philosophical thought. In the more than two centuries since the book was first published, it has been the constant object of scholarly interpretation and a continuous source of inspiration to inventive philosophers. To tell the whole story of the book's influence would be to write the history of philosophy since Kant…
In the conclusion to his second critique, the Critique of Practical Reason of I 788, Kant famously wrote, "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and more enduringly reflection is occupied with them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.'" This motto could just as well have served for virtually all of Kant's philosophical works, and certainly for the Critique of Pure Reason. From the outset of his career, Kant had been concerned to resolve a number of the most fundamental scientific controversies of his epoch and to establish once and for all the basic principles of scientific knowledge of the world, thereby explaining our knowledge of the "starry heavens." Almost as early in his career, Kant was intent on showing that human freedom, understood not only as the presupposition of morality but also as the ultimate value served and advanced by the moral law, is compatible with the truth of modern science. The Critique of Pure Reason was the work in which Kant attempted to lay the foundations both for the certainty of modern science and for the possibility of human freedom.” (Cambridge Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, 1998, pp. 1-2)
Having been woken from his “dogmatic slumbers” by his reading of David Hume [see his 1748 Philosophical Essays listed above], Kant went on to effect a ‘Copernican’ revolution in philosophy – the effects of which have not yet subsided. “Kant’s great achievement was to conclude finally the line on which philosophical speculation had proceeded in the eighteenth century, and to open up a new and more comprehensive system of dealing with the problems of philosophy’” (PMM, p. 137).
The so-called "B" text which Kant heavily revised and which must be compared and contrasted with the original first edition "A" text. Kant included here his own substantive amplifications, corrections, and improvements, noting some but not all of these in the new Introduction. All modern editions and translations of the Critique of Pure Reason blend elements of both the “A” and the “B” versions into a single presentation of the text.
At the time, Kant considered this to be the "definitive edition," but made some further minor incorporations into the 1790 edition. Today, philosophers still think it necessary to have both the “A” and “B” versions of the text available when studying this immensely important and influential work.
Contemporary half-leather with marbled boards. Spine with lavish gilt decorations and gilt lettering on red field. Rear board dented (creased) along lower portion. Former owner’s signature in purple ink on first dedication page. With pages 454 through 489 unnumbered as usual. In general, a clean, tight and very pretty copy of this extremely important work.
1792 The Second Edition of the Most Revolutionary Work by This Revolutionary Woman – The Very Beginnings of Modern Feminism - WOLLSTONECRAFT, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with strictures on political and moral subjects. Vol. 1 [all published]. J. Johnson, London, 1792. TP + [iii]-xiv = Dedication to Talleyrand + xv = Advertisement + [xvii]-xix = Contents + [1]-452, Octavo. Second Edition. $ 4,800 Published in the same year as the first edition and with identical printing and pagination.
Mary Wollstonecraft declared that her argument was “built on this simple principle that, if woman be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all”’
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written against the tumultuous background of the French Revolution and the debates that it had spawned in Britain. Wollstonecraft first entered this fray in 1790 with A Vindication of the Rights of Men, her response to Burke’s Reflection on the Revolution in France (1790) in which he had criticized the many British thinkers who welcomed the early stages of the French Revolution. While they saw the revolution as analogous to Britain's own Glorious Revolution of 1688, Burke argued that the appropriate historical analogy was the English Civil War of 1642–1651 in which Charles I had lost his head. Burke viewed the French revolution as the violent overthrow of a legitimate government and in Reflections he argued that citizens do not have the right to revolt against their government because civilization is the result of social and political consensus; its traditions cannot be continually challenged – the result would be anarchy.
One of the key arguments of Wollstonecraft's Rights of Men, published just six weeks after Burke's Reflections and in direct response to it, is that rights cannot be based on tradition, Rights, she argues, should be conferred because they are reasonable and just, regardless of their basis in tradition.
Then in 1791, Talleyrand presented his Rapport sur l'instruction publique to the French National Assembly and it incited Wollstonecraft to pen this impassioned response defending the Rights of Woman. Talleyrand had proposed:
Let us bring up women, not to aspire to advantages which the Constitution denies them, but to know and appreciate those which it guarantees them… The paternal home is better for the education of women; they have less need to learn to deal with the interests of others and should accustom themselves to a calm and secluded life.
Wollstonecraft flippantly dedicated the Rights of Woman to Talleyrand: "Having read with great pleasure a pamphlet which you have lately published, I dedicate this volume to you; to induce you to reconsider the subject, and maturely weigh what I have advanced respecting the rights of woman and national education."
In her Rights of Men, as the title suggests, Wollstonecraft was concerned with the rights of particular men (18th-century British men) while in the Rights of Woman, she is concerned with the rights afforded to "Woman", an abstract category. She does not isolate her argument to 18th-century women or even to just British women. The first chapter of the Rights of Woman addresses the issue of natural rights and asks who has those inalienable rights and on what grounds. She answers that since natural rights are given by God, for one segment of society to deny them to another segment is a sin. The Rights of Woman thus engages not only specific events in France and in Britain but raises much larger issues that can only be dealt with from a larger and much longer perspective. The gauntlet of universal woman’s rights had finally been thrown down in a way that could no longer be ignored.
Contemporary marbled boards with a recent calf spine which has gilt title lettering on a black field. There is just a bit of wear to the front and back boards. With two small bookplates to the inside front cover – one an armorial crest without name or writing of any kind and the other noting a more recent owner, Sarah Peter, which come with a small graphic and the notation: “Corpus Scriptorum Feminarium.” The inner joints are lightly cracked but holding absolutely firmly. Overall, a very pretty copy of this immensely important (and, in the second edition, affordable) book.
1821 Hegel’s Important and Influential Book on Politics and Statecraft
HEGEL, G. W. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse. (Elements of the Philosophy of Rights, Natural Rights and Statescraft in Outline.), Nicolaischen Buchhandlung, Berlin, 1821. 1 leaf (verso = foretitle opposite TP) + TP + [iii]-xxiv = Vorrede + xxv-xxvi = Inhalt + half-title + [3]-355, Octavo. First Edition (which includes the often missing foretitle "Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse....") $ 4,500 Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel's last major published work, is an attempt to systematize ethical theory, natural right, the philosophy of law, political theory, and the sociology of the modern state into the framework of Hegel's philosophy of history. Hegel's work has been interpreted in radically different ways, influencing many political movements from far right to far left, and is widely perceived as central to the communitarian tradition in modern ethical, social, and political thought. Considered by many to be one of the greatest works of moral, social, and political philosophy in the Western Canon, it contains significant ideas on justice, moral responsibility, family life, economic activity, and the political structure of the state -- all matters of profound and enduring interest to us today.
Hegel's study remains one of the most subtle and perceptive accounts of freedom that we possess. He argues that genuine human freedom does not consist in doing whatever we please, but involves living with others in accordance with publicly recognized rights and laws. Hegel strives to demonstrate that institutions such as the family and the state provide the context in which individuals can flourish and enjoy full freedom, but insists that such freedom cannot exist and properly flourish outside of a perfectly organized state. He also demonstrates how a misunderstanding of the true nature of freedom can lead to crime, evil, and poverty. His penetrating analysis of the causes of poverty in modern civil society was to be a great influence on Karl Marx.
The Philosophy of Right begins with a discussion of the concept of the free will and argues that a free will can only realize itself in the complicated social context of property rights and relations, contracts, moral commitments, family life, the economy, the legal system, and the political structure. A person is not truly free, in other words, unless he is a participant in all of these different aspects of the life of the state.
The bulk of the book is devoted to discussing Hegel's three spheres of 'right,' each one being larger than the preceding one and encompassing it. The first sphere is abstract right (Recht), in which Hegel discusses the idea of 'non-interference' as a way of respecting others. He deems this insufficient and moves onto the second sphere, morality (Moralität). Under this, Hegel proposes that humans reflect their own subjectivity of others in order to respect them. The third sphere, ethical life (Sittlichkeit), is Hegel's integration of individual subjective feelings and universal notions of right. Under ethical life, Hegel then launches into a lengthy discussion about family, civil society, and the state.
Hegel – always aware of the ‘larger picture’ – also argues that the state itself is subsumed under the higher totality of world history, in which individual states arise, conflict with each other, and eventually fall. The course of history is apparently toward the ever- increasing actualization of freedom; each successive historical epoch corrects certain failures of the earlier ones. In the end, Hegel leaves open the possibility that history has yet to accomplish certain tasks related to the inner organization of the state.
“In 1821 'The Outline of the Philosophy of Right' appeared, in which his final system of a sociology of the perfectly organized state, such as an ideal Prussia might be, was laid down. He rejected the idealistic aspirations of the reformers, their vague assertions of individual freedom being, in his judgment, trifling compared with the all-important concept of government... The [Grundlinien] turns away from the apparent chaos of the democratic advocates of individual right in favour of an overwhelming sense that liberty cannot exist apart from order, and that the vital connection of all parts of the body politic is the source of all good." (PMM, p. 171).
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Contemporary pasteboards and spine. Author and title printed in faded gold on spine. Corers bumped and worn. Four-line quotation in Greek and four-line inscription dated 1841 on front flyleaf. Internally clean except for six or so pages with pencil marginalia. Overall, a very nice copy.
1841 / 1844 Emerson's Two Most Famous Book in Original Publisher’s Cloth
EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Essays, James Munroe and Co, Boston, 1841. 2 blank leaves + half-title + TP + [i]-[ii] = Table of Contents + [iii] = Poem (History) + [3]-303 + 1 blank leaf, Octavo. First Edition (BAL 5189, Myerson A10.1.a, Binding C – no priority implied).
[with]
Essays: Second Series, James Munroe and Company, Boston, 1844. 1 blank leaf + TP + [i] = Contents + [iii] = Poem (The Poet) + [3]-313 + [315]-[316] = publisher’s ads + 1 blank leaf, Octavo. First Edition, First Printing (BAL 5198; Myerson A16.1.a-b).
$ 4,000 ESSAYS
This is Emerson's most famous book containing twelve essays on a variety of subjects including "History", "Friendship", "Heroism", "Intellect", "Art" and his most influential essay "Self-Reliance".
That essay is Emerson’s classic American statement of individuality and freedom – a recurrent theme throughout his writing, There he explicitly addresses the issue, insisting on the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency and to follow their own instincts and ideas. Here too is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." The essay carefully analyses the nature of the “aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded.”
"Timeless... as much read today as a hundred years ago. Their ethical inspiration and stimulation, their individualistic idealism... speaks with the same simple power and force in the midst of modern complexities." (Grolier American Hundred, #47)
There were only 1,500 first edition copies printed of this book.
Original publisher’s dark brown ornately embossed binding with gilt lettering on the spine. The spine has been professionally rebacked with the original spine expertly laid down and lightly repaired top and bottom. With the former owner’s name in ink to the front free endpaper. Internally clean, tight and bright – a well-preserved and highly presentable copy.
ESSAYS: SECOND SERIES
Following the success of the first set of Essays, Emerson published this second series three years later. While the first series had focused most prominently on the American ideal of individuality and self-reliance, this volume contained eight new essays (and the reprint of one of his lectures) with a much greater emphasis on the Transcendentalist side of his thought. The essays include “The Poet,” “Experience,” “Character,” “Nature” and “Politics.” . NOTE: This copy in Binding A which has priority based upon the fact that "copies in Binding A have the most first printing sheets and copies in Binding D have the most second printing sheets" (Myerson p. 111). Myerson identifies 23 variants between the first and second printing and notes that "nearly every copy examined is composed of mixed sheets from the first and second printings." This copy has 20 of the 23 noted first printing points.
Original publisher’s dark brown embossed binding with gilt lettering on the very lightly sunned spine. Unobtrusive, professional repairs to top and bottom of spine. Embossed covers with just a couple of small spotted places. There is a small, foxed spot just below Emerson's name on the TP. Overall, a lovely copy of this book.
1854 Walden – the Iconic American Tale of an Urban Hermit
THOREAU, Henry David. Walden; Or, Life in the Woods., Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1854. 1 blank leaf + TP + 3-357 + 3 blank leaves + [1]-8 = advertisements, small Octavo. First Edition (BAL 20106; Borst A2.1.a). $ 20,000 Illustrated with title vignette of Thoreau's cabin in the woods and the plan of Walden Pond facing page 307.
The final advertisements are dated "May 1854". Other copies are known to have ads dated April, June, September and October of 1854 but there is "no known bibliographical significance" (BAL, Vol. 8, p. 254) based on the fact that the book was printed in an edition of 2,000 copies on July 12, 1854 and published on August 9th of that same year (although ads dated before the publication date should count for something).
For the next 36 years, Ticknor and Fields and their successors used these same plates to print the next 27 printings of the book. The only change came in the various imprints and in the dropping of the subtitle “Or, Life in the Woods” at Thoreau’s request for the second printing in 1862.
Walden has taken its place as one of the most important pieces of American literature and a highlight of American thought. In attempting an experiment in simple living, Thoreau became the embodiment of the American quest for the spiritual over the material; and his book, ostensibly a simple record of his experiment, has earned the reputation as a work of great philosophical import.
In 1845, Thoreau’s friend Joseph Hosmer described their dinner together at Walden Pond: “His hospitality and manner of entertainment were unique, and particular to the time and place... The cooking apparatus was primitive and consisted of a hole made in the earth and inlaid with stones. When sufficiently hot, remove the smoking embers and place on the fish, frog, etc. I gave the bill of fare in English and Henry rendered it in French, Latin and Greek. The meal for our bread was mixed with lake water only... and spread upon the surface of a thin stone and roasted -- some with wet paper and some without -- and when seasoned with salt were delicious.”
Such rustic simplicity results in a romanticized Thoreau. He was a man of nature and a man of great principle, but there in truth in R. L. Stevenson’s description: “Thoreau’s thin penetrating, big nosed face, even in a bad woodcut, conveys some hint of the limitation of his mind and character. With his almost acid sharpness of insight, with his almost animal dexterity in act, there were none of that large, unconscious geniality of the world’s heroes. He was not easy, not ample, not urbane, not even kind.
Despite the sharpness of Thoreau’s personality, his life manifested an independence of character which demands respect; a wholly honest man, true to his convictions at all times is rare and special. Thus Thoreau’s unique philosophy of life has earned him a place in the pantheon of America’s literary philosophers. And Walden remains “an inspiration to nature-lovers, to philosophers, to sociologists, and to persons who love to read the English language written with clarity” (Grolier 100 American Books 63). [
PROVENANCE: From the private library of the prominent New York banker, Henry William Poor (1844-1915) who was, according to his online biographical listing “a man of refined and scholarly tastes and prominent in the social life of the city. He is an ardent student and a great lover of books and has, by careful and gradual accumulation, collected one of the finest private libraries in the city of New York.” His bookplate (here on the inside front cover), has a the family crest and Latin motto reading: Pauper non in spe (Not poor in hope).
Original brown cloth with embossed covers and bright gilt lettering on the spine. Corners lightly bumped. Minor wear to exterior except for a small (¼" x 1`") dark stain on lower edge of front cover. Small bookplate on inside front cover ("Henry William Poor") and a pencil date on front free endpaper ("August 13, 1854") – just four days after the books original publication date. With very occasional pencil underlining and marginalia. Two unattributed poems ("Walden Woods" and "Walden Water") pasted down to inside rear cover. Overall, a lovely copy of this American Masterpiece.
1859 John Stuart Mill’s Argument for Freedom One That Has “Never Been Improved Upon”
MILL, John Stuart. On Liberty, John W. Parker and Son, West Strand, London, 1859. TP + [3] = Contents + [5]-207 + 16 pages of original ads bound in, Octavo. First Edition (MacMinn, p. 92). $ 12,500 With the often missing 8 pages of original ads bound in the rear.
In his Autobiography. Mill wrote that On Liberty was about "the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions." This celebration of individuality and disdain for conformity runs throughout the book as Mill rejects any attempts, through either legal or social pressure, to coerce people's opinions and behavior. He argues that the only time coercion is acceptable is when a person's behavior harms other people – otherwise, society should always treat diversity with respect.
Mill justifies the value of liberty through a Utilitarian approach. His essay tries to show the positive effects of liberty on all people and on society as a whole. In particular, Mill links liberty to the ability to progress and to avoid social stagnation. Liberty of opinion is valuable for two main reasons, he says. First of all, the unpopular opinion may be right and second, if the opinion is wrong, refuting it will allow people to better understand their own opinions. The value of this kind of nonconformist challenge to social complacency is that it keeps society from stagnating.
Mill's essay has been criticized for being overly vague about the limits of liberty, for placing too much of an emphasis on the individual, and for not making a useful distinction between actions that only harm oneself, and actions that harm others. That said, the essay does provide an impassioned defense of nonconformity as a positive good for society, and an equally impassioned reminder that no one can be completely sure that his or her way of life is the best or the only way to live.
"'On Liberty' remains his most widely read book. It represents the final stage in the growth of Utilitarian doctrine, and its central point is one which had escaped both Mill's father and Bentham. Mill realized that the 'greatest good' of the community is inseparable from the liberty of the individual. Hitherto, liberty had always been considered relative, in relation to tyranny or oppression: Mill extended tyranny to include a custom-ridden majority, and declared that 'the sole end for which mankind is justified in interfering with liberty of action is self-protection'.... Many of Mill's ideas are now the common-place of democracy. His arguments for freedom of every kind of thought or speech have never been improved upon." (PMM, p. 210).
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Original dark brown cover with bright gilt lettering on the spine with is very lightly toned. Previous owner’s signature to the upper quadrant of the title page. A completely uncut and absolutely lovely copy of this important book. All but impossible to find in such fine condition. Comes in a custom clamshell box.
1860 The Most Important Book Published in the 19th Century… and, perhaps, ever!
DARWIN, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. John Murray, London, 1860. Half title [with three quotes and date on verso] + TP + [v]-ix = Contents + [1]-502 + [1]-32 = Publisher’s Advertisements, [with folding diagram following page 116], Octavo. Second Edition, Second Issue (Freeman 376). $ 15,000
"A TURNING POINT, NOT ONLY IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, BUT IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS IN GENERAL" (DSB)
Is there even a single credible candidate for a more influential and important book that has been published in the past 150 years? Darwin’s brilliant theory of evolution has had the most profound impact on almost every corner of our intellectual landscape and it provides the foundational perspective for our modern world view.
Although some key observations and findings from the voyage of the Beagle acted as his initial inspiration, Darwin's ideas about the beneficial mutation of species did not coalesce into his theory of evolution until he read Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population during the latter half of 1838.
In June of 1842, Darwin completed a 35-page sketch of his evolutionary theory. By February of 1844, he had converted this into a coherent 231- page essay. There was then a 10-year break until late in 1854 when, having finally finished his barnacle volumes, Darwin returned to collating his notes on the evolution of species. On 14 May 1856, after consulting Charles Lyell, he began writing an extended treatise aimed at his peers. By March of 1858 "Natural Selection" was two thirds complete at 250,000 words, the whole book projected to run to three volumes.
Then in June of 1858, Darwin received a letter about evolution from Alfred Russell Wallace, who had arrived at similar conclusions independently. This led to papers on the subject by both scientists being read to the Linnean Society of London on July 1, 1858 (PMM 344a). To stay ahead of the field, Darwin now had to publish more rapidly. Urged on by Hooker, he wrote an "abstract" of "Natural Selection," finishing a manuscript of 155,000 words in April 1859. The book, stripped of references and academic paraphernalia, was aimed not at the specialists, but directly at the reading public. Finally published as The Origin of Species on 24 November 1859 with a print run of 1250 copies, it expounded a theory of evolution that was recognizably superior and of infinitely greater impact than all previous hypotheses in explaining biological diversity.
His publisher gave Darwin an advance copy early in November and presentation copies were sent out on November 11th or shortly thereafter. Only 1,192 of the 1,250 copies were available to the book trade and Darwin famously wrote to his friend, Lyell, on November 24th: “This morning I heard also from Murray that he sold the whole edition the first day to the trade.” That same year, a reprint was also quickly exhausted. In January of 1860, this second edition, identified as “Fifth Thousand” on the title page, was published and incorporating some of Darwin’s corrections and changes.
In beautifully preserved, original green cloth covers decorated in blind stamp with a gilt spine [Freeman variant a – with the upright of “L” in London over the right-hand upright of “H” in John]. The covers are unusually well-preserved and bright in color although there is a small spot to the fore edge of the front board. This is a notoriously fragile book with a text block that is often damaged with handling. The text of this copy is in remarkably good shape. There are neat and light, occasional pencil marginalia on several pages throughout. A folding lithographic diagram by William West (after Darwin) is bound after page 116. The 32-page publisher's catalogue at the end is dated January 1860. With the small label of the Paris book dealer, Friedrich Klincksiech to the corner of the inside cover. The original binder's ticket has also been preserved on the rear pastedown. Overall, a very pretty copy of this book which is so often seen in less than stellar condition.
1869 An Absolutely Fine Copy of Mill’s Revolutionary and Influential Argument for Female Equality
“…the legal subordination of one sex to the other – is wrong in itself…”
MILL, John Stuart. The Subjection of Women, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1869. Half-title + TP + [1]-188, Octavo. First Edition. $ 7,500 Mill’s ground breaking and important work on the inequality of the sexes.
The book was actually written in 1861, shortly after the death of Mill's wife, Harriet, but not published until eight years later. The influence of his wife upon it was great, and Mill wrote in his Autobiography: "All this is most striking and profound [in this book] belongs to my wife."
Here Mill expresses his belief that "the moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice… the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes - the legal subordination of one sex to the other - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on one side, nor disability on the other."
In Mill's time a woman was generally subject to the whims of her husband and/or father due to social norms which said women were both physically and mentally less able than men, and therefore needed to be "taken care of." Contributing to this view were both hierarchical religious views of men and women within the family and social theories based on biological determinism. The archetype of the ideal woman as mother, wife and homemaker was a powerful idea in 19th century society, but it was this ideal which Mill so aggressively attacked. In his view, the key to women’s oppression was marriage and Subjection offers one of the most searing and critical pictures of marriage to emerge in the nineteenth century.
Mill argues that people should be able to vote to defend their own rights and to learn to stand on their two feet, morally and intellectually. This argument he applied to both men and women. Given his strong convictions on the matter, Mill often used his position as a member of Parliament to demand the vote for women, an extremely controversial position at that time.
At the time of writing, Mill recognized that he was going against the common views of society and was aware that he would be forced to back up his claims persistently. Mill argued that the inequality of women was a relic from the past, when "might was right," but it had no place in the modern world.[ Mill saw that having effectively half the human race unable to contribute to society outside of the home as a hindrance to human development.
In addition, John Stuart Mill was a co-founder of the first women's suffrage society (which developed into the Nation Union of Woman's Suffrage Societies) and he was extremely influential in the struggle for women’s emancipation, helping to establish the dominance of the suffrage campaign in the late 1860s and early 1870s.
To this day, this book remain an important theoretical statement of the case for woman's suffrage.
Publisher’s blind-stamped light-mustard cloth with bright gilt lettering to the spine. With the original binder’s ticket to the inside rear cover. This copy is the finest we have ever seen – or are likely to ever see. It appears as if it was put away on the day of publication and only recently brought out again into the light of day. An extremely fine copy of this monumentally important book in the history of Western ideas.
1886 An Original Wraps Copy of Beyond Good and Evil Considered by Many to be His Most Important Work
Jenseits von Gut und Böse (Beyond Good and Evil) Naumann, Leipzig, 1886. TP + [III]-VI = Vorrede + [VI] = Inhalt + halftitle + [3]-271 + [272] = Berichtigungen + DUPLICATE & UNCUT TP + [III]-VI = Vorrede + [VI] = Inhalt, Octavo. First Edition in Original Wraps (Schaberg 40). $ 19,500 One of 600 copies that Nietzsche had privately printed by a "vanity publisher".
Considered by many to be Nietzsche's most important – and accessible – philosophical work, Beyond Good and Evil was the first of Nietzsche's "self-published" books.
The work opens with a Preface that lays down the famous challenge: “Let us suppose that Truth is a woman – what then? Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women—that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a woman?”
This brilliant Preface is then followed by nine interlocking chapters that delineate the profile and the task of the "free spirit" and the "philosopher of the future" and contains some of Nietzsche's most insightful and barbed attacks on previous philosophers, as well as many of his most powerfully and elegantly formulated analyses.
As perhaps nowhere else, the Nietzsche of Beyond Good and Evil fulfilled his own criterion of literary greatness: “To say in one sentence what others have required a book to say – and then to say what they did not say as well!” By any standard, Beyond Good and Evil is among the greatest books in Western Culture. It is difficult to imagine another in which one can find so much.
Here, for the first time, Nietzsche proposes a "natural history of morals" and proposes that the revaluation of former values is the central task to be accomplished by the philosopher of the future – this indeed would be the primary task of his own final works. He begins: “If a person should regard even the effects of hatred, envy, covetousness and the lust to rule as conditions of life, as factors which, fundamentally and essentially, must be present in the general economy of life (and must, therefore, be further enhanced if life is to be further enhanced) – he will suffer from such a view of things as from seasickness. And yet even this hypothesis is far from being the strangest and most painful in this immense and almost new domain of dangerous insights…”
Finally, Nietzsche’s concept of will to power plays a prominent and central role in the book, as does his famous analysis of master and slave morality, which is mentioned here for the first time.
In the rare original printed publisher’s wraps – the only such copy we have seen in the past thirty years outside of a library collection. The front cover has a professionally closed 4” semi-circular tear (see photo) and there are some other minor tears and chips, but overall the wraps on this copy are remarkably well preserved. With two small reddish stains to the front cover (see photo). With a duplicate of the first gathering bound in the rear (containing another title page, Preface and Inhalt). Housed in an elegant half-leather clamshell box with green marbled boards and the title in gilt lettering on a red field. This is a clean, tight and bright copy of this all important book by Nietzsche in its rare original wraps.
1887 Master and Slave Morality - and His Genealogical Method Demonstrated
NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Zur Genealogie der Moral (On the Genealogy of Morals). C. G. Naumann, Leipzig, 1887. TP + [III]- XIV = Vorrede + half title + [1]-182 + [183] = Inhalt, Octavo. First Edition (Schaberg 53). $ 6,000 Nietzsche's second privately-printed work of which 600 copies were produced.
The Genealogy has generated more scholarly comments in the past thirty years than any other book that Nietzsche wrote. The book contains three sustained and interlocking essays. The first addresses the origins of our conceptions of "good" and "bad," as against those of “good” and “evil” and contains Nietzsche's famous analysis of master morality and slave morality (a topic he had first introduced in Beyond Good and Evil the previous year). The second essay traces the origin of a "bad conscience" – the phenomenon of the soul taking sides against itself – while the third and final essays attacks the Christian advocacy of ascetic ideals, even while recognizing that “almost everything we call ‘higher culture’ rests on the spiritualzation of, and giving depth to, cruelty (against oneself).”
With the publication of On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche returned to the more familiar world of prose and completed the third phase of his writings, which had begun with the four poetic books of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and continued through the purely prose restatement of Beyond Good and Evil. To complete the cycle, Nietzsche offered an addendum to Beyond Good and Evil, conceived of as an illustration of how the principles of that book might actually be applied in specific cases. The verso of the original title page carried the explicit notice: "An addition to the last published Beyond Good and Evil which is meant as a supplement and a clarification”… The new book generally followed the format of the previous work, consisting of three essays, each of which was broken down into long, closely reasoned paragraph sections.
Nietzsche maintained that the writing of Genealogy was completed in twenty days—between 10 July and 30 July 1887—but the correspondence with his publisher shows this to be something of an exaggeration. Certainly, two-thirds of the book was in Naumann's hands by 30 July 1887, but the finished manuscript—which included the third essay—was not sent until almost a month later. In general, this was a period of great creativity and activity: Genealogy was written, proofed, and released simultaneous with the printing and publication of the Hymn to Life…
Nietzsche sent Naumann the manuscript for a "small polemic" on 17 July 1887, the text of which he claimed was "in direct connection with Beyond which we published last year." He requested that the same page layout, type, and paper be used "so that this treatise will appear to be a continuation of Beyond on the outside as well." This first manuscript contained only the essay which contrasted the ideas of "Good and Evil" ("Gut und Böse") with those of "Good and Bad" ("Gut und Schlecht"). However, three days later Nietzsche telegraphed his publisher: "Due to unforeseen circumstances, please return the manuscript." Nietzsche told Gast he had decided to do this "not because of any dissatisfaction on my part, but because in the meantime the work had begun to grow and now there seems to be no end in sight." On 29 July, Nietzsche sent Naumann a revised copy of the manuscript which he had expanded to contain a second essay entitled "`Guilt,' `Bad Conscience,' and the Like" ("Schuld," "Schlechtes Gewissen" und Verwandtes). Once more he insisted that everything be kept the same—"the two books must look so much alike as to be actually confused with each other."
The proofing process followed the standard procedure with Gast and Nietzsche both receiving copies of the correction sheets. On 14 August, Nietzsche reported to Naumann that he was happy with the speed of the printing and that the "rest of the manuscript, the third essay" would be arriving in three or four days. This third essay, entitled "What Is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?" (Was bedeuten asketische Ideale?), was not completed and mailed to the printer until 28 August 1887.
(Schaberg, The Nietzsche Canon, pp. 149-151)
Recent period-style ½ tan leather with grey marbled boards. The spine with 5 raised bands, and gilt decorations in each compartment. Gilt title on black field in second compartment, gilt authors name on black field in fourth compartment. The interior is clean, tight and bright. A very pretty copy of this important work by Nietzsche.
1900 Max Planck Announces the Arrival of His Revolutionary Quantum Theory
PLANCK, Max. Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung im Normalspectrum (Theory of the Law of Energy Distribution in the Normal Spectrum) in: Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft im Jahre 1900, Volume 2, pp. 237-45. Johan Ambrosius Barth, Leipzig, 1900. Octavo. First Edition. $ 22,500 Bound with Volume 1 (1899) and Volume 3 (1901). Also containing Planck’s paper Ueber eine Verbesserung der Wien’schen Spectral- gleichung (Over an improvement on the Viennese Spectral Equation), pp. 202-4.
Planck’s famous first announcement of his Quantum Theory – a theory that revolutionized physics in particular and science in general in the 20th Century. It was for this discovery that Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918.
They tried to talk Max Planck out of becoming a physicist, on the grounds that there was nothing left to discover. The young Planck didn't mind. A conservative youth from the south of Germany… he was happy to add to the perfection of what was already known. Instead, he destroyed it, by discovering what was in effect a loose thread that when tugged would eventually unravel the entire fabric of what had passed for reality.
As a new professor at the University of Berlin, Planck embarked in the fall of 1900 on a mundane sounding calculation of the spectral characteristics of the glow from a heated object. Physicists had good reason to think the answer would elucidate the relationship between light and matter as well as give German industry a leg up in the electric light business. But the calculation had been plagued with difficulties.
Planck succeeded in finding the right formula, but at a cost, as he reported to the German Physical Society on Dec. 14. In what he called ''an act of desperation,'' he had to assume that atoms could only emit energy in discrete amounts that he later called quanta (from the Latin quantus for ''how much”) rather than in the continuous waves prescribed by electromagnetic theory. Nature seemed to be acting like a fussy bank teller who would not make change, and would not accept it either.
That was the first shot in a revolution. Within a quarter of a century, the common sense laws of science had been overthrown. In their place was a bizarre set of rules known as quantum mechanics, in which causes were not guaranteed to be linked to effects; a subatomic particle like an electron could be in two places at once, everywhere or nowhere until someone measured it; and light could be a wave or a particle.”
(Dennis Overbye in the New York Times, December 12, 2000)
This was not only Planck's most important work but also marked a turning point in the history of physics. The importance of the discovery, with its far-reaching effect on classical physics, was not appreciated at first. However the evidence for its validity gradually became overwhelming as its application accounted for many discrepancies between observed phenomena and classical theory. Among these applications and developments may be mentioned Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect.
PMM 391a; Dibner 166
Contemporary drab mottled paper covered boards with a hand lettered spine label. Minor wear to the spine joins and scuffs with slight bubbling on front board. Still, overall, this is a beautiful first edition copy of one of the most important publications in physics and all of the other sciences that depend on it.
1907 First Edition of James’ Most Complete Statement of American Pragmatism
JAMES, William. Pragmatism, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1907. 1 blank leaf + 1 leaf with book ads on verso + half- title + TP + Dedication page + vii-[ix] = Preface + xi-xiii = Contents + half-title + 3-[309] + 1 blank leaf, Octavo. First Edition (McDermott 1907-11). $ 550 James first used the word “pragmatism” in a talk entitled “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results” that he delivered at Berkeley in August of 1898. Eight years later, he finally gave a full presentation of this new way of “doing” philosophy in a set of lectures at the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1906 and then repeated at Columbia University in 1907.
While James’ Psychology (1890) is still admired and referenced for his thoughts on consciousness and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) continues to be a touchstone work in the field of religious studies, this book, Pragmatism, is easily his most famous and most notable contribution to philosophy and the most eloquent expression of this most “American” of philosophical perspectives.
The preface distinguishes between "pragmatism" and "radical empiricism" and contains multiple references to other writers illustrating the pragmatist tendency. James offers his pragmatic method as a technique for clarifying concepts and hypotheses. He claimed that if we do this, ancient metaphysical disputes that appear to be irresoluble quickly dissolve. For instance, when philosophers suppose that free will and determinism are in conflict, James responds that once we compare the practical consequences of determinism being true with the practical consequences of our possessing freedom of the will, we find that there is no conflict worth considering.
James explained his pragmatic method through examples rather than by giving a detailed analysis of what it involves. He did very little to explain exactly what ‘practical consequences’ are; it simply was not an issue for him. He also made no claim to originality: ‘Pragmatism represents a perfectly familiar attitude in philosophy, the empiricist attitude’, although he acknowledged that it did so “in a more radical and in a less objectionable form than it has ever yet assumed” (Pragmatism, p. 31). It shared with other forms of empiricism an “anti- intellectualist tendency” and it recognized that theories (and presumably concepts) should be viewed as “instruments, not answers to enigmas”. We identify the “practical consequences” of a theory, concept or hypothesis by describing its role as an instrument in thought, in inquiry and in practical deliberation.
This was one of James' most controversial publications which raised an immediate storm of debate when released and became the single work with which James' philosophical theory was most closely identified.
Publisher’s original brown boards with lighter colored cloth spine. There are a multitude of lighter spots on the front portion of this lighter colored cloth and a few brown spots to the spine itself (see photo). The spine label is 100% readable but stained a slightly darker color in spots. Overall, a very pretty and well-preserved copy of this important book by William James, America’s foremost proponent of the pragmatic theory.
1921 The Original Journal Publication of the Tractatus
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung (A Logical-Philosophical Treatise) in Annalen der Naturphilosophie, herausgegeben von (edited by) Wilhelm Ostwald, Vierzehnter Band, Drittes u. Viertes Heft (Fourteenth Volume, Third and Fourth Part), Unesma G.m.b.H., Leipzig, 1921. Original printed wrap + [185]-308 + TP for Volume 14 + 1 leaf + Inhalt (Contents) for Volume 14, Octavo. First Edition (Frongia/McGuiness, "Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung”, p. 42). $ 55,000 The first appearance of Wittgenstein’s first work (published in the following year in book form in London with a parallel English translation under the title Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus).
Wittgenstein wrote the work while serving in the Austrian army during World War I. He completed the work in August of 1918 and it stayed with him after his capture and incarceration in an Italian prisoner of war camp at Monte Cassino. From there, a copy was sent to Bertrand Russell via John Maynard Keynes. Wittgenstein and Russell met in Holland in December of 1919 to discuss the work as Wittgenstein was anxious to have it published quickly; Russell undertook to write an introduction but in May of 1920, Wittgenstein wrote to Russell saying that the introduction contained many misunderstandings and he could not let it be printed with his book. The work was then rejected by the publisher with whom Wittgenstein had been negotiating and, in July 1920, he wrote to Russell saying that he would take no further steps to have it published and that Russell could do with it as he wished. The German text was published in 1921 in this publication and then in 1922 with an accompanying English translation in book form. Both publications carried Russell’s introduction – here in German and in English in the book.
The Tractatus was published with Russell’s “Introduction” – indeed it was the “Introduction” by the famous philosopher that secured the publication of the work in the first place. When Wittgenstein finally saw the Annalen (it took him some time to locate a copy… he had not been sent one) he was appalled by the huge number of typographical errors... so horrified in fact, that he wrote a friend saying he regarded it as a “pirated edition” (Monk p. 204). Nonetheless, this is the true first publication of this most important work of 20th Century philosophy.
“The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows… that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of the language. Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof on cannot speak thereof on must be silent.” (Preface, 1922 edition).
“The twenty thousand words of the Tractatus can be read in an afternoon, but few would claim to understand them thoroughly even after years of study. The book is not divided into chapters in the normal way, but consists of a series of numbered paragraphs, often containing no more than a single sentence. The two most famous are the first (‘The world is all that is the case”) and the last (‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’). Some of them have proved easier to set to music, or to illustrate in sculpture, than to paraphrase. The style of the paragraphs is concise and economical, devoid of decoration, sparing in examples. …The result is austerely beautiful, but uncommonly difficult to comprehend.” (Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1974)
Original printed orange wraps. An untrimmed copy. There is just a bit of soiling to the outer edge of the front cover. The spine has a very small chip at the top. Comes in a modern, folding black cloth case. Other than the noted faults, this is an absolutely fine copy.
1922 Wittgenstein’s Tractatus in the RARE Original Dust Jacket “The Most Important Book of Twentieth-Century Philosophy”
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London, 1922. Half title + TP + [5] = Note page + 7-189 + 1 blank leaf, Octavo. First Edition, First Issue (Frongia/McGuiness "Tract." p. 42). $ 15,000
Between “The world is everything that is the case” and “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” Wittgenstein presents this monumental work which is usually accorded the honor of being "the most important book of twentieth-century philosophy".
Printed in English with facing German texts, this is the first edition in book form of what first appeared in 1921 in the final number of Annalen der Naturphilosophie, the text here revised by the author and a translation made by Frank P. Ramsey under the editorship of C. K. Ogden.
Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein's one-time teacher, supplied the uncomprehending "Introduction". (Regarding the "Introduction", Wittgenstein wrote Russell on April 9, 1920: "There's so much of it that I'm not quite in agreement with – both where you're critical of me and also where you're simply trying to elucidate my point of view." [WA, p. 23])
Apart from one paper published in 1929 – which he considered weak and confused – the Tractatus was the only philosophical work that Wittgenstein published in his lifetime.
W ITH the almost never seen, rare dust jacket – that is all but unknown in the trade. To our knowledge, only one other copy has been offered for sale in the dust jacket in the past 25 years (and another copy in dust jacket is alleged to be held by a Los Angeles collector).
WITHOUT the ten-page, undated catalog at the end. Regarding this catalog: a careful examination of other copies of the Tractatus that do have the catalog reveals that the books listed in the “Complete List” clearly dates these ads as being printed in late 1925.
The first printing of the book did not sell well (a second edition did not appear until 1933) and all copies were not bound at the time of publication. As more copies were called for and bound, at some point in late 1925 this undated ten-page catalog was added to the book.
Regarding the early issue of this copy, it should also be noted that it has a front-flyleaf inscription in pencil: “F. R. Cowell / 25 Jan 1923”. Wittgenstein received the first “author’s copy” of the book on November 15, 1922 (WA, pp. 24-25 & Monk p. 212) and the Tractatus was published shortly thereafter. The first public notice of the book appeared in a review published in the Time Literary Supplement on December 21, 1922 (Frongia / McGuinness p. 55) – so the pencil inscription identifies this as a very early copy, indeed.
Regarding the dust jacket, knowledgeable dealers originally questioned its authenticity, but this skepticism was uniformly driven by the fact that they have never seen a UK dust jacket for the book. However, the contemporary business journals of Kegan Paul (held in the Special Collections of University College of London) notes that while 1,500 copies of the Tractatus were printed, they produced only 750 dust jackets.
Note that the Tractatus dust jackets were printed on October 23rd, three full weeks before Wittgenstein received his first advance copy of the book on November 15th. (The book was officially released on November 23rd.) On that day, Wittgenstein wrote to C. K. Ogden, the editor of the series: “Thanks so much for your letter and the books which arrived yesterday. They really look nice. I wish their contents were half as good as their external appearance” (Letters to C. K. Ogden (1973), omitting later editing). The “nice… external appearance” Ludwig was looking at would have been a lovely dust-jacketed copy.
Interestingly, as the publishing journal pictured above shows, the number of copies printed (1,500) exceeds the number of jackets printed (750). This could be understood to mean that some copies were issued without dust jackets OR that the sheets for 750 copies were shipped to the US, where they were known to be locally bound and released with a locally printed dust jacket.
Finally, most copies of the initial sales of the Tractatus went to libraries where the dust jackets were almost automatically and uniformly discarded. Nor were collectors in the UK fond of these early dust jackets. As noted by Sir Henry McAnnally in The Book Collector’s Quarterly, 1932-VI: They are “an unmitigated nuisance…. only fit for the waste paper basket”. Dust jackets were, in those days, generally considered to be unworthy of collection as a separate object. Given these two factors, it is not surprising that so very few of them have survived into the 21st century.
Original publisher's cloth in original dust jacket. Dust jacket with several small chips and closed tears. Jacket reinforced with tape in several places on reverse side… most prominently on spine section. With the bookplate of Daniel M. Friedenberg to the inside front cover and the pencil inscription of the original owner (“F. R. Cowell / 25 Jan 1923") to the center of the front free endpaper (which is browned by former – now missing – inserts). Internally clean, bright and tight. Comes in a custom designed clamshell box. A truly singular and beautiful copy of what many consider to be the most important philosophical work to be published in the 20th century.
1949 The Dawn of Modern Feminism
BEAUVOIR, Simone de. Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex). Paris: Gallimard, 1949. Volume 1: 1 blank leaf + half title with a list of her works on the verso + TP + Dedication page + half title + [11]-395 + [397] = half title + [399] = Index + [400] = Printing Information; Volume 2: 1 blank leaf + half title with a list of her works on the verso + TP + Quote page + Introduction page + Half title + [13]-577 + [579] = half title + [581] = Index + [583] = Printing Information, Octavo. First Edition. $ 900 One of 2,000 numbered copies (from an edition of 2,150) on alfama Marais paper - Volume 1 is numbered 624 and Volume 2 is numbered 482.
Beauvoir's landmark work on feminism appeared at a crucial turning point immediately following the Second World War, wherein she offered a profound and scathing analysis of patriarchal society and what it means to be a woman in Western society. One of her most important pieces of writing, The Second Sex, was translated into more than a dozen languages and played a pivotal role in the transition from the ‘old feminism’ of the woman suffrage movements and the ‘new feminism’ (the so-called “second wave”) that has dominated gender politics ever since – setting the agenda for women's rights throughout the nineteen fifties and well beyond.
“…if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question “what is a woman”?
To state the question is, to me, to suggest, at once, a preliminary answer. The fact that I ask it is in itself significant. A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: ‘I am a woman’; on this truth must be based all further discussion. A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man… In actuality the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity. In the midst of an abstract discussion it is vexing to hear a man say: ‘You think thus and so because you are a woman’; but I know that my only defense is to reply: ‘I think thus and so because it is true,’ thereby removing my subjective self from the argument. It would be out of the question to reply: ‘And you think the contrary because you are a man’, for it is understood that the fact of being a man is no peculiarity. A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong. It amounts to this: just as for the ancients there was an absolute vertical with reference to which the oblique was defined, so there is an absolute human type, the masculine. Woman has ovaries, a uterus: these peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within the limits of her own nature. It is often said that she thinks with her glands. Man superbly ignores the fact that his anatomy also includes glands, such as the testicles, and that they secrete hormones. He thinks of his body as a direct and normal connection with the world, which he believes he apprehends objectively, whereas he regards the body of woman as a hindrance, a prison, weighed down by everything peculiar to it… Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being.”
Bound in the publisher's original cloth with the colorful, modern design supplied by Mario Prassinos. There is some minor wear to exterior and very light discolorations to the lover front edge of Volume 1 and to the lower edge of the spine of Volume 2. The title page of Volume 1 and the Dedication page that follows have a very light water stain (2” wide) in the upper left corner. Otherwise, this is a lovely copy of an extremely important and influential work in the history of ideas in the late 20th century.
1953 Wittgenstein’s SECOND Great System of Thought Both systems “the result of many years of intensive labors, each expressed in an elegant and powerful style, each greatly influencing contemporary philosophy, and the second being a criticism and rejection of the first” An accomplishment deemed to be “probably unique in the history of philosophy”
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1953. Half title + TP + bound-in errata slip + [v]-xe + 1-232e, Octavo. First Edition (Frongia/McGuiness "P.I." p. 44). $ 1,800 Wittgenstein worked on Philosophical Investigations for the last twenty years of his life and, in accordance with his wishes, the volume was published shortly after his death in the German text with a facing English translation.
"A considerable part of the Investigations is an attack, either explicit or implicit, on the earlier work, [the Tractatus]. This development is probably unique in the history of philosophy – a thinker producing, at different periods of his life, two highly original systems of thought, each system the result of many years of intensive labors, each expressed in an elegant and powerful style, each greatly influencing contemporary philosophy, and the second being a criticism and rejection of the first." (EP, VIII, p. 334)
Philosophical Investigations discusses numerous problems and puzzles in the fields of semantics, logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of action, and philosophy of mind. Wittgenstein puts forth the view that conceptual confusions surrounding language-use are at the root of most philosophical problems, contradicting or discarding much of what he argued in his earlier work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. . He alleges that the problems are traceable to a set of related assumptions about the nature of language, which themselves presuppose a particular conception of the essence of language. This conception is considered and ultimately rejected for being too general; that is, as an essentialist account of the nature of language it is simply too narrow to be able to account for the variety of things we do with language. Wittgenstein begins the book with a quotation from St. Augustin, whom he cites as a proponent of the generalized and limited conception that he then summarizes as follows:
“The individual words in language name objects – sentences are combinations of such names. In this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands.”
Wittgenstein then sets out throughout the rest of the book to demonstrate the limitations of this conception, including, he argues, with many traditional philosophical puzzles and confusions that arise as a result of this limited picture. Philosophical Investigations is highly influential. Within the analytic tradition, the book is considered by many as being one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century, and it continues to influence contemporary philosophers, especially those studying mind and language.
Original blue cloth with gilt lettering on the spine. Dust jacket just a bit foxed. Contemporary book advertisements laid in. A clean and bright copy of this important work by Wittgenstein.
"The owl of Athena flies only at dusk" Georg W. F. Hegel: Preface, Philosophy of Right
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